Services Markets

One of the fascinating things about crowdsourcing is discovering the various twists on the concept that entrepreneurs have come up with. I’m absolutely sure that 2011 will throw up some innovative new business models and some very clever start-ups, but even in the existing crowdsourcing palette there are some very neat ideas out there, some of which have been established for a number of years. It’s fun to do a little surfing and see if you can stumble upon the next Quirky.com.

Matt explains that you can create a multimillion dollar empire overnight on a shoestring budget, using sites like his. He shows us examples of the types of things you can outsource, how his company came to be and why Crowdsourcing is the next big thing.

Yvonne Adele, Chief Idealist of Ideas Culture explains how she created her company “Ideas while you sleep” – practically overnight.

Sharing with us how she uses her own unique brainstorming techniques to generate ideas from around the globe…. literally while you sleep… Yvonne spoke at The Insight Exchanges Getting Results from Crowdsourcing event Check out the full presentation video:..more

One of the ideas at the heart of effective crowdsourcing is understanding the non-financial incentives that attract and inspire workers. particularly the most the talented ones. Research from traditional workplaces shows that providing context to a task so that people understand why it is being done is a strong motivator. That is even more the case with crowdsourcing, where workers often have no idea of how their work will be used. Now some very interesting research gives insight into how meaning impacts workers on the crowdsourcing site Mechanical Turk.

The Economist this week addresses the wonderful world of online freelancing and crowdsourcing, under the rubrik Work in the digital age. The full article is well worth a read.

The article points to the potential for online freelancing and piecework to account for a substantial part of global labor. While The Economist has touched on the issue before, this is now something that is a significant business issue which is going to start attracting a lot more coverage. The Economist notes:..more